A reader and writer fooling with words

The Language of Playing Cards

Today’s post was inspired by a short piece in Allen Foster’s Irish Miscellany book which reads as follows “Few people realize that the six of hearts is nicknamed Grace’s Card after a defiant Irish soldier. Richard Grace, who was subsequently killed at the Battle of Athlone in 1691, was invited to join the Williamite forces, and wrote his reply, rejecting the proposal, on the back of a six of hearts.” It caught my eye as my first name is Grace. It would have been more romantic if the Irish man was writing a deathbed note to his childhood sweetheart, but I’ll settle for the miltary story.

It got me searching for other card-related terms and I found two particularly good sets of information on the topic. The first is Andy Pollett’s Introduction to Playing Cards where I discovered that the Ace is named after a weight measure coin in Latin and that clubs are known as flowers in Italy. There’s a great deal of history to the development of playing cards down through the centuries. Did you know they used to be taxed?

At Wordfoolery I love the tradition of the wise fool, so I was delighted to find Andy also has a page dedicated to the Fool or Joker cards and their history. He concludes that the witty role of the court jester, who had greater freedom of speech, makes the perfect role model for a card which in many games can over-rule more powerful cards. Let’s hear it for the Fools!

But what about the language of playing cards? Wikipedia has what appears to be a near exhaustive list of the nicknames for playing cards which confirmed the nickname “Grace’s card” for the six of hearts. Other such terms which caught my eye from the list were the nine of diamonds being called the Scourge of Scotland. There’s debate over the source of this one – it could have been used as a code to authorise the Glencoe Massacre or the Duke of Cumberland may have scribbled a “no quarter” order on one for Culloden or it may relate to a hated tax raised to replace nine diamonds stolen from the crown of Scotland. Who knows? But they’re all good stories.

The Devil’s Bedpost card is the four of clubs and causes superstitous players to feel their hand is about to being a losing one. If you’re interested in the many such beliefs, check out the entertaining list here.

Clearly there’s more to the language of playing cards than I can contain in one blog post, so I think I’ll fold.